What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

We did some garage saleing. I got a great deal on a hardigg foot locker. Also got a nice barely used BBQ for free and a propane tank to make it work. Looking forward to firing it up and doing some grilling. We have a charcoal one but the turn around time is such that we don't use it much. For gas I can just fire it up and cook dogs or burgers or whatever. I picked up some new boots to replace the aging and not pretty enough to wear every day at work ones I was wearing. Once I have worn them for awhile I will do a review.

Also we put together a car kit for kiddo. Clothes, sleeping stuff, some food, a cup, bowl and spoon. I am generally not too worried about that stuff as we stick close to home but A) kiddo manages to get dirty in the most suprising places/ ways and B) a minor annoyance for us is a big deal for him.
I have scaled back lifting to twice a week and am putting more energy into conditioning and endurance. I put on a ruck for the first time in awhile and while I wasn't as fast as I have been it wasn't terrible. Will make sure to keep that as a weekly thing for the foreseeable future. All in all a pretty good week here.

Next week I am going to try and order some stuff. Also if the sun comes out I want to test out the solar charger.
What did you do to prepare this week?

Great Sale On Cloth Diapers!

The folks at Cottonbabies are selling factory second flip covers and inserts for great prices. The covers are about half off regular price and the and the inserts at about 3/4 price. This is the system we use with Walker. Wifey recommends the ones with snaps as snaps are less prone to wear than velcro. As to quantities we have 8 covers and 24 inserts for Walker. We needed all of them when he was little and pooped all the time but now we could probably get by with a few less of each. With those numbers we need to wash them about every other day.
Anyway that is a real good deal on a product we use and recommend. I wanted you all to know about it so maybe you can save a few bucks. The only relationship we have with this company is as satisfied customers.

A Day in the Life

Today was kind of a busy day for us. This afternoon I went and picked up a bunch of used 2T clothes for Walker for $25 that Wifey found on the interwebz. He will still need some more pajama's but the bulk of the shopping is done. The lady tossed in some 3T stuff also. We washed and folded it so everything is ready for when the stuff is needed in a couple months.

Walker is currently wearing 18 month clothes and we have already got his 24 month stuff. We have bought almost all of it used for great deals. Buying stuff used often takes time, especially when you want something specific and are cheap. It is sort of like that saying about construction "you can have fast, right or cheap but only get to pick two." We could get him a bunch of  clothes that he needs tomorrow but we would be paying a lot more. On the other hand if we anticipate our needs a few months in advance we can wait for the right deal to come along.

I found a bunch of toys in a bag by a dumpster. Needless to say I grabbed it up. Wifey went through it all and decided what to keep. We got a ton of new stuff for Walker. Also I found a toddler bed that somebody had thrown away. We will have to put it together and check it out but it appears servicable. We cleaned and sterilized everything (though it seemed clean but you never know) and it is ready for Walker. He really likes the fire truck and having another ball to carry around.

Dumpster diving is one of my favorite things to do. I just love finding free stuff.

Later Wifey decided to figure out how to make some snacks. First she made wheat crackers. The recipe came from Frugal and Simple and they resemble wheat thins. The first picture is before. The dough is rolled out then cut with a pizza cutter before baking.

The second picture is from after baking. The white stuff is a bit of flour that helps minimize stickiness. It is the only white flour used in the recipe.

After that she made dehydrated yogurt bites in the dehydrator. Walker loves these things but they are like $3 for a tiny package! He gets them when we travel and we keep some around for various reasons but they are too expensive to feed to him all the time.

If it wasn't obvious almost all of this stuff except the dumpster diving was Wifey. She does all sorts of things like haunting used stuff boards and cooking snacks to stretch my earnings as far as possible. Also feeding the kid healthy stuff is important to her. It is also worth noting that she can do these things because she has time. If Wifey was working at a full time job she would not be able to do these things.

Anyway that is what we did today.

It Was a Merry Christmas

It was a very nice Christmas Day for the TOR Clan. Pretty traditional really; we opened presents, had some breakfast, relaxed for awhile, watched some movie FIL watches every year (don't remember what) and then had a big dinner. After that we watched Toy Story 3 which little sister in law really enjoyed. It has been a quiet evening. I really enjoyed being able to take about a nice long nap between lunch and dinner.

We had a really good Christmas haul this year. I got a mag light, an energizer LED lantern, a Garmin E Trex series GPS, a Kindle, a silver dollar (I was pleased to hear they got it awhile back when silver was a lot lower), enough cash to buy an external hard drive and a few other things. Wifey got some cash, a Kitchen Aid mixer with some accessories, a kit to make baby food at home and some various other stuff. Walker got a ton of clothes, toys, various other stuff and almost a hundred bucks to go into his college fund.

I noticed that most people spent about as much as they normally do this year. The last couple of years may have been down a bit. I did however also notice that people (us included) seemed to put more thought than normal into the gifts they purchased. Instead of just grabbing something as people can do they seem to be putting some real thought into it.

I am looking forward to getting the GPS up and running. I have an old Magellan somewhere but the user interface is seriously lacking. That was back when them and Garmin were neck and neck. Since then quality has improved a lot and the Etrex is pretty darn easy to use. I am quite eager to check out the Kindle. I think it will be useful instead of hauling a dozen books here or there. It won't replace a good old fashioned book for situations where there is inclimental weather, rough use and such. However for something like a deployment or other situation where I will have decent (using a very low standard of dry, minimal electricity acccess, etc) accomodations this will be a lot easier than  30 pounds of books. Also seeing as we move a lot sooner or later the sheer weight of physical books will start to be an issue. Of course I will continue to purchase prep type books in a physical format but for a new fiction novel or just something I want to read the Kindle may be the way forward.
I hope everybody had a really nice Christmas.

Stay At Home Mom's, Lifestyle Choices and the American Family.

In a recent discussion I saw stay at home mom refered to by the acronym SAHM. I am unsure where this came from and until proven otherwise I will credit it to Patrice who writes the great blog Rural Revolution. Anyway moving forward. I have been thinking about the whole stay at home mom thing.

I find the excuses for why people say they can't have mom (or I suppose dad) at home to be just that, excuses. The fundamental issue is that to be able to have mom at home you need to be able to live on what dad makes. Simply take the amount he brings in, subtract some for savings and a cushion then the rest is what you've got to live on. Simple but not easy.

All the excuses boil down to we would rather have stuff than mom at home. Living on less may well mean a smaller, simpler residence like most things in life, it is attainable if you want it bad enough. I can however see that not every woman wants to be a SAHM. They may have goals outside of the home, want the social interaction that comes with working outside of the home. I guess my point is that having momma at home is possible if you are willing to make the sacrifices.

For some reason I am still not clear on I watched a couple hours of 16 and Pregnant today. My first thought was "life is hard; its harder if you're stupid".  John Wayne said that. The whole getting pregnant really young thing is stupid.

Seriously the impact of lifestyle choices like having a kid cannot be overstated. These kids are going to have a seriously rough go of it based upon the stupid choice they made.

Long Day

We traveled back home today. It was a long flight and Walker was suprisingly and remarkably chill, he just slept a lot. Got a bottle of Glennfiddich 15 at the duty free for 30% off which is cool. I am eager to sample it at some point. Other than that it was nice to see some of our old stomping grounds on the ride from the airport. I had some Arby's which I was really looking forward to.

Anyway I just wanted to let you guys know we arrived safely and didn't get stuck in Philidelphia again.

Someone's Got a Case of the Mondays

As a blogger every now and then I have the idea for my next post fully formed and the thing practically written in my head when I see a post elsewhere that says exactly what I was going to say better than I could. This morning was sort of one of those days. SHTF Blog's post Prepper Burnout- Identify and combat it really struck a cord with me. 

I've been feeling sort of burned out recently. Since I got back last Friday it has been evident enough that people I talk to are noticing it during conversation. I got to really thinking about why this was last night. I laid there for about 3 hours just thinking.

A bit of it is just life. Work has recently (last 2-3 months or so) been busy, not particularly rewarding and more stressful than in the past. That is definitely a factor. I am pretty ready to take a break for the holidays.

I got to thinking that a lot of it however is what SHTF Blog keenly identified as Prepper Burnout. Right now our big push is to become debt free by paying off my school loan. We are putting an almost rediculous percentage of our income toward that goal. Things are working but it isn't fun. While we have decent reserves our general operating budget is tight. This is creating a lot of stress in our finances that would not otherwise exist. The payoff date is pretty darn close so it isn't really worth tweeking things. However if we had it to do over again a slightly less aggressive (about 10-15% less a month) repayment plan would have given us most of the benefit with a lot less stress.

Also not being colocated with a lot of my preps stresses me. Not so much in a worring about if things happen and I am not there sort of way as I am comfortable with our situation here. More that I got a lot of joy in seeing my stocks and watching stuff accumulate. It makes the work and effort I put into stuff worthwhile and also has a real calming effect on me. The work is still there but the calming effects are not.

It probably doesn't help that we are currently living through a preparedness scenario. Just because it isn't a fun, quick or sexy scenario doesn't make it any less real. Employment is bad, the economy is at best uncertain, crime is up, there is inflation in normal purchases and all kinds of other bad stuff. That you can't carry a rifle everywhere and there is still electricity doesn't mean real stuff isn't going down.

Anyway enough with the pitty party. The real question is what am I going to do about it. Today I started making a couple conscious efforts and made a bit of progress. The day sucked especially bad and my mood is, at least relatively speaking pretty good. The first thing I decided was to do at least a couple things in a day just because I enjoy them. Today I had a doughnut for breakfast on a work day. Also I had a little time with no TV/ computer or other noise just hanging out with Walker. That was nice and took my mind off things.

Really wanted to get back into the gym today but it just didn't work with my schedule. Tomorrow I think it will. Lifting once in a blue moon or a couple times in a row randomly won't do much for my body but I enjoy it and it gets those good endorphins going. Lastly I am just trying to enjoy the little things and force myself to be happier. Remember, fake it until you make it. Going home, seeing friends and family, shooting my own guns, repacking all my new awesome stuff and just plain taking a break will hopefully help a lot.

See you all tomorrow

I'm Baaack!

It was cold, snowy and just plain nasty. Average temperature was around 20f or so. It snowed a lot and there was a biting wind. The foot or so of unpacked snow played hell with walking, let alone running and other more vigerous activities. However it wasn't too bad. We do have pretty good gear which makes a huge difference. Also I had a warm dry place to go in my off hours and generally got decent sleep which helps a lot.

I did write every day (just no net to post) so next time this happens there will be posts which is good. Been thinking and fiddling with slings a lot lately. Decided I need to just throw down the cash for a purpose built two point adjustable sling. Will announce the winner of our awesome contest as soon as I can.

Got home pretty late tonight. Wifey made a nice dinner and I got to spend some time with Walker which was cool.  He smiles and sort of tries to play now which is cool. Makes him a bit more interesting to hang out with. I am looking forward to a calm weekend at home. Anyway I have nothing else huge to say so I will talk to you tomorrow.

Ryan

Happy Thanksgiving

As is appropriate I have spent some time today thinking about what I am thankful for. I have a lot to be thankful about for sure. I am very thankful that Walker is well and we are all able to spend this holiday together as a happy little family. While it has medically been a crazy couple months for us we all appear to be in good health. I am thankful that we aren't struggling to keep a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs. I am thankful that between preps and saving we can feel pretty secure about our overall situation. I am thankful that my sister is here and we are going to do some traveling this weekend.

It occurs to me that most of the things I am thankful for are directly or indirectly the result of my own choices. I/ we could make choices that created animousity and unhappiness in our home. We could choose to be idle or underemployed and struggle for basics like shelter and food. We could spend beyond our means and have constant worries about money. Of course luck is a factor. Right now lots of decent hard working folks are either unemployed or seriously underemployed and really struggling. If they live well within their means and have some savings they are better off but in a long enough under/ unemployment most everybody will start to have serious problems. Folks can make the right choices and have continual health issues.

It has been a pretty good Thanksgiving so far. Went to bed pretty early yesterday and slept till almost 10. Had a pretty relaxing morning just chilling out then Little Sis, Walker and I went to do some local sight seeing. It is pretty good holiday weather. Right around freezing with a bit of snow on the ground. Just enough to cover rooftops, trees and lawns giving the nice scenic winter look but not enough to muck up the roads and make it hard to get around. The food is cooking and we are all sitting around and talking. Shortly it will be coctail and appetizer time which is always fun.

We are having a sort of 'Orphans Thanksgiving' as always. Wifey cooks a bunch of food and we invite everybody who can use a place to go and feed whoever comes. Relatives, neighbors, co workers or whatever. It makes for interesting groups of people but is good times.

Well I am going to go and enjoy a lot of food, some great scotch and family.

Happy Thanksgiving

AK Stuff

It has been a pretty chill day here. Spent the first part of the day taking care of Walker which was cool. Wifey and I took an idea from Chief Instructor and did a crackers and cheese, appetizers kind of dinner. It was pretty nice and is about the only kind of date that is Walker compatable. Also it has the benefit of costing about as much as a round of drinks at a restaurant.

I spent a good chunk of the evening floating around Warrior Talk forum. That has gotten me thinking about some interesting AK ideas. I suppose it is like anything else where you can spend as much as you want.

On the bright side my most recent purchase has pretty much finished me up on mags and ammo. The great thing about AK's is that ammo and mags are, at least relatively speaking, quite affordable. The bad thing is that supplies are almost entirely produced in former Communist Bloc countries and thus can go away at the stroke of a pen and a change of import regulations. Recently good availability has returned and prices have gone down to reasonable levels. This is a great time to get squared away (however you define that) as quickly as your finances permit.

So I've got a bone stock AK (of course a sling and a cleaning kit) with a decent stash of 30 round mags and ammo. That is a pretty solid start and not at all a bad finishing point. I have been pondering a folding stock lately, one of those aftermarket side folding ones. Since they have a fairly short barrel and no weird buffer in the butt an AK folder is really compact. That would make for an easy to discretely transport package. Some parts are on my list; maybe for next year.

The idea of an AK with a folding stock, a tac light is kind of appealing to me. I think it would be a strait up CQB machine and a pretty darn good defensive rifle. I could do it for around $300. I probably just spent too much time reading about all kinds of AK configurations and accessories.

Maybe some day.

What Did You Do To Prepare This Week?

We had a pretty darn good preparedness week. First we went and got a bunch of extra formula for Walker which was really good. We already had a stash but now it is a pretty solid stash. Next I put a small Gerber folding knife onto my keychain. I just about always carry a knife anyway but knowing that if I am out of the house I have at least one knife won't hurt. Next time I go to the clothing and sales I will get a small led light to go on there also.

After a lot of consideration I decided that instead of getting body armor at this point I am going to take care of a couple things that have been on the list for a long time and a couple recent additions to the list that we can just really use. I ordered a Bianchi 100 Professional IWB holster for my Glock 19. I really wanted a good holster for it to carry while I am home on leave. I have holsters (full sized Glock size) that fit the 19 but not perfectly. The difference between a real good fit and an OK fit is readily apparant in concealed carry.

When it comes to ancillary equipment for my AK I have been way off of my own desired levels (for a rifle like this 3k roounds and 20 mags) for a long time. For awhile it wasn't really even on the radar and after that it has been towards the bottom of the list. It has been on the list for awhile now and the ammo was even on this years New Years Resolutions or at least the first round of them. I should also be able to get a full case of 9mm JHP ammo by years end.  So I went ahead and ordered a case of 7.62x39 JHP Wolf ammo and 10 Eastern European surplus mags to round things out. I will go home and toss that stuff into an ammo can and aside from picking up a couple boxes now and then to go shooting not need to think about it.

Also I went out and ordered a brand new ECWS 3 Piece Sleep System. Now both Wifey and I have one. We have a couple other sleeping bags floating around but these things are a really good piece of kit.

I feel relieved to have the AK setup finally meet my own rather ambitious standards. Especially given that AK stuff is almost universally imported it gives me a lot of peace of mind to know I have a comfortable amount of ammo and plenty of mags put away. Before I had enough mags and some ammo for me to use but not much of a margin for field loss or helping a friend. Now I have that margin. Having another serious sleeping bag coming into the inventory is sure a good feeling.

I am going to let our Awesome Ammo Giveaway Contest go for a few more days as technological issues and life have put it, despite my best intentions, a bit onto the back burner. Seriously it amazes me how many people will gripe and complain about how expensive ammo is and how they can't afford it but won't put forth a little bit of effort to get a solid chance at willing a half case of the stuff for free. If you don't own any of the calibers you could stand to win (9/40/45) then enter anyway and sell or trade the stuff and buy something you want.

Also if you want extra special reader points (redeamable for all kinds of great prizes and trips) then please mention this blog to a friend, family member, gun buddy or like minded individual. Send them a link to your favorite post or just the blog itself or tell them our name and let them look us up on google.

I have some awesome stuff in store for next week so stay tuned. Got one in my head about staple cooking. Another one about chest rigs and gear. Maybe one about knives too. Probably something or another about money or home finances. Best of all you just might hear from Wifey.

Just In Time, Formula and Your Food Supplies

The whole concept of Just In Time inventory is an interesting thing. Basically how it works is that there is no (or very minimal) inventory in storage. Lets look at it from the perspective of a small store. The store doesn't have a "back room" with inventory in it. What is on the shelves is it. Lets say they have two of those big boxes of butter finger candy bars. When the first one is finished they order another from the little card (usually a bar code) on the box. Maybe they reorder cases of Dr. Pepper when they are down to two.

The reason businesses do this is that it makes economic sense for them. The combination of UPC codes, computer tracking and cheap regular deliveries make it the way to go. Instead of a big grocery store paying for a bunch of storage space they just get regular deliveries by trucks. Less worry about inventory (when applicable) going bad and no money tied up in inventory that is just sitting idle.

However JIT has a whole lot of weak points. The supply chains are long and complex. Truly a logistical feat and nightmare. While a combination of programmed reordering and inventory forecasting works pretty well it doesn't have much room for adjustment. A sudden jump in demand throws off the whole system for some time because it isn't just the last point in the supply chain (the store where you buy stuff) that practices some degree of JIT. Nobody has whole warehouses of food or batteries or bullets to respond to an unanticipated demand.

We recently had a good reminder of this when it comes to formula for kiddo. The AAFES (don't even get me started on them) folks use JIT.  Here is US Army Europe there are very long supply lines that definitely have hickups even during normal business operations. There are periodically shelves bare of a particular item for some time. Not much of an issue for us as we stock up. However we are just getting into the whole formula feeding thing.

We had a good supply of one kind laid in as we got a great deal on it. However after some consideration we decided to try putting kiddo onto a more affordable brand. (Like a lot of things the stuff is the same minus labels, marketing and markup. To the point where it is sometimes made in the same factories.) It was working well so we decided to keep him on it. The stores here recently ran out of this type as well as the other two brands they stock. We had a bunch of the other kind but don't want to be switching things around on him all the time unless it is necessary. Today we were at another installation and picked up 6 more cans of the stuff we are using now. That gives kiddo about a month's worth of the stuff we use (not including our emergency stash) which should be plenty for those occasional times when we can't get it on the shelves.

This was particularly significant to me because when it comes to kiddo he eats just the one thing. We can get one percent milk instead of fat free (or whatever) or this kind of burger instead of the other kind but kiddo doesn't do that. I guess this was just a good additional reminder not to rely on JIT (even aside from various disaster scenarios) because something like a snowstorm in Nebraska can screw up food getting to stores in your neck of the woods. Yet another reason to have a decently stocked pantry.

Please remember that we are running an awesome contest. Write a post on your site/blog/forum elsewhere online about how you use ammo cans. Here is a shell you can use if you want.


" Lucky Gunner partnered with TSLRF to put together a contest. The goal is to come up with the most creative way to use ammo cans. I use ammo cans to _____________________. The prize is a half case of free ammo! See the full details here."

If you paste that shell into your blog or website or favorite forum then add in what you use ammo cans for and you will be good it go. You do not need to use the above shell. I just wrote the shell out to make it as easy as possible for you to enter. For a qualifying post you just need to be sure you link to ammo cans and TSLRF in your post!

b. Copy the link to your post and add it to the comments section on this post. You can also email a link to your entry to me. This enters you into the contest.

c. The contest will run until 14 November. After the contest has closed, I'll do another post w/all the qualifying entries. Our readers will get to vote on which post was the best (either entertaining or most informative) via a survey. Folks who enter can tell their readers/ friends and family about the survey and they can vote in favor of your entry - so be sure and spread the word!

d. Based on the poll results, the winner gets their choice of 500 rounds of ammo from Lucky Gunner. See full details here.

Breast Feeding, Formula and Diapers

We planned to have Wifey breast feed Walker and to do cloth diapers. Long story made short breast feeding didn't work. She saw a dozen nurses, a half dozen doctors and a couple of lactation consultants. We still aren't sure what the issue was but he wasn't getting fed and just kept losing weight. It was necessary to switch to formula so kiddo actually got some food. It was devastating to Wifey and pretty rough on me too as we really believe in breast feeding. It was hard enough on her that I didn't mention it on here for some time and only then after discussing if she was OK with me posting it. However at the end of the day the kid has got to get fed. He is a lot happier now that he isn't like starving and stuff.

As punishment for his failure kiddo will not recieve a Breast Man onesie. I think this was the first big lesson that sometimes things will happen beyond our control when it comes to kiddo. The saying "If you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans" comes to mind. Probably a lesson that was coming anyway.

His legs just got big enough to fill out cloth diapers which we are excited about as it means no more disposables. The breast feeding failure, while beyond our controll, definitely redoubled our motivation to make cloth diapers work. It is too early to say for sure but it doesn't seem like much of a hassle. She has those ones with the outer thing and a liner and just keeps a spare ready to go so changing is the same. I am sure we will talk more about this later.

Anyway I've got to get to work. Talk to you all later,
Ryan

Huge Announcements

Walker is out of the hospital. He is back to being pretty content and minus a bit of diaper rash perfectly healthy. We are really happy to have him home and well. Just being back home does a lot for our spirits and his temperament. Thanks for all the prayers and such.

I am also pleased to announce that we are partnering with our loyal advertiser Lucky Gunner on an awesome contest. It has been brewing for awhile and finally everything is right. All the details will come out tomorrow but here is a teaser, FREE AMMO! I am not talking about a little bit of ammo either.

Have a great weekend,
Ryan

Unfortunate News

I got a call from Wifey a few days back that they were at the hospital. Walker had a fever and was just really uncomfortable. She took him to the emergency room and they have been there since. They don't really know what is going on except that he is pretty sick and had a fever, low respirations/ oxygen levels, dehydration and was just plain upset. They have pretty much been throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks with lots of fluids, Tylenol, oxygen and just about every antibiotic known to man.

Work was able to get me back home yesterday afternoon. I was able to take Wifey some stuff (clothes, toiletries, books, etc) and see them both. Walker seems to be doing at least a bit better now. Wifey was re leaved that I could help a bit and just be around. Walker was still pissed off.

Until Walker is released from the hospital I am going to be working as much as I absolutely have to and spending as much time as possible with Wifey and Walker at the hospital. In whatever time remains I am going to attempt to sleep. Needless to say in the current reshuffling of my priorities the blog is not very high. Odds are that I will still post because it fits well into the down time between PT and work. However my various other normal blog related functions (reading, email responses, etc) are postponed indefinitely.

I am hoping for some progress and a full recovery. Prayers, positive thoughts, chants, pagan rituals, alters or whatever you believe in would be appreciated.

quote of the day 2

"I carried this kid through 9 months of hell, I'm going to protect him."
-Wifey

Sometimes I get my auto posts crossed. 

OOPS No Post

Yesterday I actually spent most of the evening writing a post. Wifey put Walker down and he actually slept on his own. I worked on it a bit more and then was about finished. Since Walker was still sleeping I figured I would grab a quick nap then publish the post and have dinner later. Walker stayed asleep and only woke up when Wifey got him up for feedings. So instead of waking up again at 11 or so I slept through the night. Best oops ever.

New and Upcoming Frugal Child Rearing Adventures

Wifey is breast feeding Walker. It has a lot of health benefits and that formula junk is so darn expensive. Unless there are some exigent medical reasons I don't see why anyone wouldn't breast feed. However for breast feeding to work momma and baby have to be around each other almost constantly. She can pump but in the big picture it is sort of a hassle, at least to do all the time. Also a lot of day cares won't deal with anything but formula. In my book that is yet another reason mothers should be at home with their kids. 

We will be doing cloth diapers once Walker builds up his legs a bit by roundhouse kicking. They are cheaper and have some other benefits too. This one will be interesting and surely will be the topic of subsequent posts.

Wifey plans to make baby food when he gets ready. They want so darn much for those tiny little jars of baby food. Also this will have the added benefit of knowing exactly what is going into kiddo's body. We aren't crazy about that sort of thing but it never hurts to eat actual food instead of hydrogenated preserved junk.

Pretty much all this stuff is at least somewhat cheaper than the pre packaged, disposable consumer equivalent. It is also a lot more preparedness friendly. This will become a series.

Sunday Ramblings: What Have You Been Thinking About This Week?

It has been an interesting weekend. We're all pretty thrown off staying up at all hours and sleep randomly. Going to bed when the sun is coming up and drinking coffee in the early afternoon or in the middle of the night. Sometimes the meals I eat match up with my schedule and other times they match up with the time of day. The combination makes me feel kinda out of it and like I'm slightly drunk all the time. Yesterday I woke up and immediately had dinner. This morning at 6am Miley was having a beer. Half the time I can't tell you what day it is let alone if it is AM or PM.

Talked with Stephen for awhile yesterday.  He is doing a lot better which makes me really happy. Had some interesting conversation about life, guns and the economy. He sends me lots of interesting emails and I do my best to read them. We talked about precious metals some. Concluded that it might not be a bad time to sell gold if you plan to anywhere in the near future. However if you are still buying PM's silver still shows some opportunity. Personally I am staying away from gold and instead buying silver.

One interesting thing about interacting with people who come to something from a different angle is that sometimes they can expose you to a cool new piece of gear or way of doing things. For example after handling my Glock 19 when I was down there he really wanted one and recently got it. If there has been a person who wasn't happy with the Glock 19 I haven't met them.

Also I got to talk to my friend Ryan (lawyer type) which was cool. He is well. Getting ready to do all kinds of huge things. We had an interesting conversation about politics and such. It might be interesting how this upcoming election goes. During it and beyond we are both cautiously optimistic that the Tea Party will do some good stuff. He is excited that they may well win some stuff in this election. I think it is good that if nothing else they are shaking up the GOP and conservative base in general which is good.

Ryan (lawyer type) said something that really resonated with me. He said more or less that he was seriously concerned about the state of our nation and was just going to stop stressing it and just get his stuff in order. I had a similar realization some time ago and it has brought me a lot of peace.  I can watch the news now and usually not freak out. My stress level and probably blood pressure are at much more reasonable levels. Instead of worrying about this or that which may be or is happening I am putting mental time and energy into preparing my family. Instead of stressing this bill or that amendment I think about how to meet this goal or increase that capability. I suggest this sort of perspective to everyone.

Personally I am really tired of this whole crony capitalism thing. It breeds corruption, kickbacks and nepotism by rewarding connections far more than sound business practices. After some reflection I think I prefer welfare type socialism though it should go without saying that I dislike both. At least somebody can (incorrectly) think they are actually helping PEOPLE. Ya know the kind of people with connections who often move seamlessly between slightly above mid level political appointments and cushy advising/ consulting/ VP of nothing type jobs in business. Hook up GE or some hedge fund while you are working for .gov then get a highly paid job not doing much of anything for them afterwords. I don't like the idea of forcibly taking hard earned money from people and giving it to nonproductive members of society; however giving somebody welfare (social security, "disability insurance", mortgage interest deductions, "earned" income credit, etc) just makes me shake my head. Conversely rewarding a group of businesses who screwed our entire economy makes me want to throw up.

We got a bunch of formula today even though Wifey is breast feeding. It is good to have options and a backup plan. Other than that I did a lot of reading on various preparedness and financial stuff. It doesn't really seem worthwhile to do "What did you do to prepare this week" but I figured I'd mention what has been going on. Life is kinda busy for me but I hope you are still doing good stuff. If you want to tell me what you've been up to I would love to hear it.

Now that Walker has been born Wifey is officially a stay a home mom. We don't plan for her to go back to work (though if a good part time work from home opportunity arose...) until our last kid, we're planning on two, goes to Kindergarten. For us this is a very put your money where your mouth is kind of thing. We believe and research agrees that young children do better if Momma is at home with them.

Having a stay at home parent  is one of those things that is simple if not easy. To do it you just need to live on what one of the parents makes. This may well mean decreasing your lifestyle and probably means you've got to give up on keeping up with the neighbors. We would rather have Wifey taking care of our kid then a brand new BMW. Her being able to hang out with, take care of and teach Walker is more important then brand new furniture, expensive electronics and a closet full of designer clothes.

I've got a couple interesting posts coming up for next week. Hopefully you folks will enjoy them.

Interesting news article: Oregon Faces Cold Hard Reality.  Here is a teaser "Borrowing money to cover operating expenses is just plain stupid."

What have you been thinking about this week?

Paying Yourself First, Diversification and Such

Every once in awhile I read something that just makes my head spin. A few days ago Chief Instructor wrote one of those posts and I just got around to reading it today. I commented on it but it it has stuck in my head. I was trying to go to sleep today at about 2 pm [Kiddo is kinda all over the place in terms of sleep schedule. We're kinda sleeping when we can.] and the wheels were just spinning. I should probably mention that I spent all of last night watching the BBC news and reading various financial stuff online. This post is brought to you by the above two influences plus a bit of narcolepsy.

The concept of paying yourself first came to mind. Basically the concept goes like this. Before you pay your bills, before you buy groceries, before you do anything else, set aside a portion of your income to save. Put the money into your 401(k), your Roth IRA, or your savings account. The first bill you pay each month should be to yourself.   It is just so easy to say that you will save later when you make a bit more money or just vaguely in the future. Especially when we talk about far off concepts like retirement it is easy to say you will start saving next year.

I don't think it is entirely accurate to say that even practitioners of this idea truly pay themselves first. The reason I say that is when push comes to shove few people will make their 401k/ Roth IRA/etc contributions before say paying the electric bill and buying groceries. It would probably be more accurate to say that after you pay basic operating costs (housing, energy, food, fuel, etc) you make that contribution before the discretionary stuff. In any case the key is that you are putting a regular amount into whatever investment vehicles you choose on a regular fixed basis.

I was thinking that it might be prudent to use the same sort of spirit when it comes to preparedness. So often people really want to do great things but money or a lack thereof holds them back. Putting a regular fixed amount into whatever kind of preparedness goals you have on a regular set basis can go a long way towards solving that problem. It won't be a cure all but it will probably help. Maybe it is food storage or gear or water filtration or who knows what but this should allow you to meet reasonable goals over time.

I was listening to this video by these financial management people (they didn't mention till halfway through the presentation that they only talk to people with TONS of money, grrrr) and they did a lot of talking about asset classes. Stuff like specific types of stocks, bonds and the like. The smart people will say that to meet certain goals you will want certain amounts of different stuff.

For awhile I have applied the same kind of thinking to preparedness but without such an articulate explanation. Stuff like food storage, medical, firearms, ammo, alternative energy, spare clothing, gear, etc. I don't know exactly what the right percentages are but it is smart to balance between these different classes. A bunch of one doesn't make up for not having any of another.

The topic of precious metals is interesting these days. I think it depends so much on where you are at and what you want the money to do. Precious metals are a good non dollar denominated liquid asset. However they do not earn interest or benefit from compound growth. I have some real reservations about going big into PM's all at once (versus dollar cost averaging) especially when the market is high. The time when one might reasonable want to shift their liquid assets to 30% metals by buying a some silver and a couple rolls of one ounce rounds is probably a year or two past. Some folks say gold and silver will go way higher. I don't know if we are at the absolute top but I do know it is bad to be the last one to buy into a commodity upswing. Personally I'm buying silver right now and won't purchase any more gold until it corrects significantly.

I suppose that just like anything else you're open to make your own decisions. If you are absolutely positive that anything in stocks or dollar denominated will go into the can then betting heavy on precious metals makes sense. I do think however that hedging your bets is a sound idea. Some classes of assets like stocks tend to run hot while bonds run cold and visa versa. Sort of like dollars and euro's or dollars and gold.

One trend I see in survivalists is to just go all in. Folks get an idea that this or the other thing might happen then bet everything on it. I don't really understand this. To me a huge part of survivalism is managing risk. I want to be able to do OK if the economy tanks and also do OK if it does well. Managing your risk by having plans to succeed if our economy goes up, down or sideways just makes good sense.

Thoughts?